BSkyB Reports 21% Profit Rise

BSkyB today reported a 21% increase in first quarter profits and the addition of 87,000 new customers, taking the broadcaster to over 9 million subscribers for the first time.

Sky’s chief executive, Jeremy Darroch, said the business had its best performance it the first quarter in terms of customers for five years.

As a result of Sky’s statement this morning, the broadcaster’s share price went up 12p, just over 3%, from its opening level by around 8.45am.

However, the satellite broadcaster’s subscriber base, which now stands at 9.067 million, has seen some users trade down from its more expensive packages due to the credit crunch in recent months.

Sky said that this has been offset by its success in persuading customers to take more than one of its three services – TV, broadband and telephone packages.

Darroch said: “We are not complacent, I don’t think that any consumer business is going to be entirely immune to a sustained downturn. That said, we are relatively well positioned as a business.

“More people are joining us, they’re staying with Sky for longer, they are taking more services from us and that is why we are able to grow our top line,” he added.

In the three months to end September, Sky increased its reporter operating profits by 21% to £179 million as revenue increased 5% to £1.25 billion.

Sky said its still confident it will reach its target of 10 million customers by the end of 2010.

A number of services are proving popular with Sky customers – in the first quarter Sky acquired a record 93,000 high definition customers, while 421,000 new users added the broadcaster’s Sky + personal video recorder in the quarter.

However, the report also showed that the take-up of Sky’s broadband service has slowed down, with just 164,000 added in the quarter, down from over 200,000 in the previous period.

BskyB: 0207 705 3000 www.sky.com